ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the tense relationship between cultures and the market will be explored using the example of the marketing of the literary character Harry Potter. It shows that globalisation of the media and of media corporations involves an economically based tendency toward transcultural compatibility of cultural goods. The chapter demonstrates how globalised media corporations can achieve a sovereignty of interpretation that limits the freedom of cultural consumers, in those instances where the dual character of cultural goods has not been sufficiently taken into account. People need to understand how globalisation influences the behavioural options of different actors. Media corporations are particularly significant with regard to the process of cultural globalisation. It is undeniable that in the future the production as well as the assessment of mass media content will be in the hands of just a few profit-orientated corporations, who consider and deal with media contents mainly as merchandise rather than as cultural products.
